


Now That We've Found Love...

by Jenni_Snake



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Infidelity, M/M, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:52:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenni_Snake/pseuds/Jenni_Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*SPOILERS FOR END OF S03* and beyond</p><p>Back on Earth from his tour on the ISS, Howard finds his world off-balance, and can't quite find his footing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now That We've Found Love...

Six weeks looking down on the planet from 230 miles straight up, avoiding most contact with his crew mates and having only occasional contact with home had given Howard lots of time to think. It had given him perspective, like he had been too close to a canvas, and that only by stepping back did he see the whole painting. He didn't know how he hadn't seen it before. It was like watching the flashes of lightning in the clouds over the blue-green planet looming beneath him - it made logical sense that you should be able to see it, but he'd just never really thought about it. This, though, was more electric than lightning, with the potential to be just as dangerous.

At this moment Raj was one millionth as close as he had been just two weeks before, and yet the foot-and-a-bit of space that separated them now was an abyss, and he felt further from him than ever. When a somewhat tipsy Bernadette finally pushed and pulled her way off of the couch from in between them to stumble to the liquor store at end end of the block for more Chardonnay, neither Howard nor Raj objected - nor did either of them offer to accompany her. Instead they sat and stared at the gap between them, and stared at each other in silence. Howard twisted his wedding ring around his finger without thinking, and his breathing sped up. 

It was Raj, in the end, who bridged the gulf, reaching out and putting his hand on Howard's. They stared at each other in silence, Howard feeling his heart beat quickly as he fell into Raj's deep brown eyes openly for the first time, his mind swirling with every reason why this was treasonous, unfair, impossible, and all the feelings of why he didn't care. The chasm was gone as he leaned over to close the gap, kissing Raj hungrily on the lips. Guilt hovered at the edge of his brain, but finally getting the contact he had long craved was exhilarating. Their kiss was deep and warm and wet and soft, and, without breaking it, Howard straddled Raj on the couch, drinking him in, the taste of his mouth crisp, metallic, so right, and he was kissed back just as feverishly. Raj's hands slid up under the thin fabric of his turtleneck, caressing his skin and the hair on his chest and setting him on fire. Hands tangled in Raj’s black curls, tugging and pulling, Howard found out that the apology he was about to utter was unnecessary, as each handful got a moan and a rise from beneath him, and he pressed up against Raj with bulging pants, face hot from embarrassment and lust, letting out his own uncontrolled sounds now that they had granted each other permission. He ground against Raj, the tenderness of his swollen cock rubbing against his tight jeans, both uncomfortable and exciting, and Raj pushed back into him. They couldn’t say a word, their ability at expression lost to the intensity of sensation, their breath gasped for between kisses, ignoring the sloppiness of it all, the arousal and the wine helping numb them to the unfaithfullness of it all.

Raj pushed Howard back suddenly, violently, and for a split second Howard was shocked back to reality, took stock of what they were doing, was ready to agree with Raj the moment the words _can't_ and _wrong_ escaped his lips... but his lips were looking for something other than words as he slid down further beneath him, tackled Howard’s belt, button, fly, and before Howard came to himself he was gripping the back of the couch in the same way that Raj was gripping his ass and swallowing his cock nearly whole. The sound that escaped his own throat would have embarrassed him if he hadn’t known that Raj hadn’t heard it. He pressed his hips forward without thinking, and tried to restrain himself so that he wasn’t choking his friend beneath him as he rocked his hips slightly. For his part, Raj guided Howard’s hand down towards the waist of his pants, but Howard could only manage to squeeze at his cock through his khakis, pressing his palm against Raj's throbbing bulge in rhythm with his pulse. For one lucid moment Howard realized that he shouldn’t be doing this with Raj, not here, covertly in his apartment, not now that he had made the commitment to Bernadette and closed the door on the friend who he thought would never be more than that - but the guilt put itself off as the warmth of Raj’s tongue on his cock surged and finally burned, and, with remorse and joy, Howard came in his mouth. A moment later he felt a wet spot of warmth spread across the front of Raj’s pants. It was difficult to move, and Raj slipped out from underneath him and mumbled something about having to change.

For one moment, a wonderful moment he prayed would last for the rest of his life, the illusion that this was all happening three years before, that there was no Bernadette to betray, no marriage vow he was breaking, no repressed desire he was denying - that this was the start of something instead of the end - for one moment it all seemed real. 

The pleasure, the elation, the liberation Howard had felt not an instant earlier evaporated as he shoved his still-moist cock uncomfortably back into his underwear, and the jittering of his hands as he tried to do up his jeans was now from anxiety, not ecstacy. Sitting on the couch like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the red on his cheeks, which had just been from unfettered want, disappeared only for a second to immediately be replaced by a flush from shame. If only this had happened years ago, there might have been smiles instead of sadness, laughter instead of longing and self-loathing. Now he opened his right hand to find his wedding ring sitting on his palm, and wondered when he had taken it off, and why he wasn’t putting it on again. He needed time to think over what had just happened, to understand what this was. He would have given anything for another moment to think it through, or not have to think about it at all, but just then Raj stepped out of his bedroom and Bernadette stepped back into the apartment, and Howard wondered what they were going to do with this.


End file.
